Talk:Arts and Literature of the Twelve Colonies

Purpose

This page serves to collect all information on arts, literature, music, and aesthetics in the twelve colonies. It is currently a merger of Edward Prima, Dark Day, A Murder on Picon, Kataris and Monclair, with additional notes on the abstract art of Kara Thrace and her father's piano compositions, as proposed on Talk:Polygons. The current version is a very rough draft. This article will eventually include notes on colonial aesthetics (octagons, hexagons, etc.) and some more prosaic introductory text, and become part of the the Twelve Colonies series.

Suggestions are welcome. --Peter Farago 18:00, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Aesthetics

Merv, please leave the outline on Aesthetics alone until I have a chance to fill it. --Peter Farago 18:06, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

As a dumping ground compilation of the various arts pages I agree, but there don't need to be whole subsections on the cut corners; a mention in the intro will do. I'm assuming popular culture counted too?--The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 18:04, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Would you give me a day or two to put something together before passing final judgement? I think it could be a fairly interesting section of the article, and the need for something of this nature was pointed out convincingly on Talk:Polygons. --Peter Farago 18:07, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Oh yeah, sorry I thought it was as done was it was going to be; didn't see that it was a new project thing. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 18:29, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Dreilide Thrace

The Merovingian deleted the reference to Dreilide Thrace with the edit summary: "We don't know her father's name".

With respect, I submit that if the SkyOne information is good enough for us to have articles on the otherwise unnamed Joseph and Evelyn Adama, we can rely on it for Mr. Thrace's given name until contradicted by the series. --Peter Farago 18:06, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

....I don't know if we should do that: A) SkyOne isn't a definative source B) most importantly, This SkyOne information was *taken down*. It no longer exists online. Maybe they took it down....because it was no longer "correct"? I've pointed out in several character bios, notably Galactica-Sharon, that information from SkyOne's old bio stuff has in fact been contradicted several times by new information.

You are right: I was unaware that that was the sole source of William Adama's mother's name (his father's name is engraved on the lighter), but if SkyOne is indeed the sole source of this info I'm going to slap a proposal for deletion on "Evelyn Adama". We really shouldn't use it if it's not from Scifi, and was actually removed. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 18:33, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

I've copied this to Battlestar Wiki talk:Citation Jihad. Let's continue the discussion there. --Peter Farago 18:48, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

I've set to remove all SkyOne bio information from regular articles and just limit it to the Series bible page. Discussion about whether to even delete it from there should continue on that page's Talk section. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:08, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

Image Requests

• Kataris: Either Palladino's bound copy of his poems, or the threatening message on Tigh's mirror.
• Dark Day: A screen cap of Adama giving the book to Roslin, or Roslin returning it to Adama
• Dreilide Thrace: Can we link to the streaming media sample of "Metamorphosis One" on Amazon?

--Peter Farago 18:13, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

What about the free, full copy of it posted in Galacticastation's media section? Click on my username at the end of this message: I already hotlinked it into my 'music to work to' section. :) --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 20:10, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Link's broken. --Peter Farago 21:37, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Efficiency

Buzzword of the day: the technical reason squares are the most "efficient" shape is because they are the measure polytope of two-dimensional space. The Octagon, meanwhile, cannot tesselate 2-space. --Peter Farago 03:59, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Thanks for the tidbit; that's really quite interesting. --CalculatinAvatar^(C-T) 13:25, 19 June 2006 (CDT)

Maybe they should reverse the polarity, thus creating an inverse phase variance. I'm not sure if I'm up on all this "science" and "math" but a blind man told me that might work sometimes. --Day ^{(Talk - Admin)} 21:18, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

Big Enough?

I added two sections on Sculpture and Architecture, including 3 thumbnail images. Is that enough to expand this article sufficiently or should I hunt down more? --Homeworld616 15:53, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

I would hope that all the TODO's would be done (or at least removed) before removing the expansion tag. --Steelviper 15:59, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

I'm not sure what your basis is for identifying the two unnamed cities with a pre-federalist aesthetic, and Caprica city with a federalist aesthetic. --Peter Farago 16:40, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

Homeworld616 I appreciate your work and a lot of its good...but most of this is just "we put a camera on downtown Vancouver because that's where we film", and you're trying to base theories on that. I mean the bemusing thing is to add on notes to like, Caprica or the Miniseries + "Epiphanies" and say "this is really shot on SFU's campus in Vancouver", but it doesn't really mean anything. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 16:51, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

Yeah. I'd rather not read too much into the architectural variations. --Peter Farago 18:23, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

Sorry about all this you guys. I just write about what I see. I apologize for my overzealous detail-espousing and theory-making. I'll try to improve that. Anyhow, my basis for the different aesthetics ranging from the unnamed cities to Caprica City is, on secondary review on my part, unfounded. I see mixtures of both "styles" in each city. I'll get on that. Also, if you don't want to read into that architectural detail mumbo-jumbo I'll trim down the Kobol section (which, since Kobol wasn't a colony, I don't know if that section should even be here). I can also take superfluous detail off of the other sections and perhaps combine them. --Homeworld616 23:17, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

There. Does this form please you? --Homeworld616 23:24, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

Galactica v. Pegasus

Galactica corridors are pretty much just pentagons while those on Pegasus are octagons. That clears up that TODO, doesn't it? (I asked this question because I didn't want to write false info into the article. I'd like this hallway shape verified first). --Homeworld616 23:33, 3 July 2006 (CDT)

I believe that the corridor junctions on Galactica form acute angles, whereas the junctions on Pegasus are at right angles. --Peter Farago 04:37, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

It would also be nice to get some more images and rethink their layout in this article before going live. The image to text ratio is going to be necessarily high due to topic matter - I think this calls for judicious use of the gallery tag. --Peter Farago 04:45, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

Right, I agree with you. We need to hunt down some images. I'll try Google.--Homeworld616 12:28, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

We use GalacticaStation.com's episode guide's screencap gallerys for many of our day to day screencap needs. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:55, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

Beyond a brief mention of how Pegasus looks more advanced than Galactica, the actual place for pointing out the differences should really be under Mercury class battlestar, though we're actually waiting for the Extended Version of Pegasus to come out because RDM said in the podcast that there is a scene in it where they mention some of the differences, so that's on hold till September. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:57, 4 July 2006 (CDT)

I've completed the merge from a separate article on the shapes and forms to the article, also adding the Pegasus/Galactica shape question. It's from memory, so do correct with picture evidence. --Spencerian 09:09, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

TV design...an aesthetic?

I first realized this when User: Sauron18 brought this up on the Channel 7 News article discussion page. We've technically seen three Colonial TV sets, two at Baltar's house in the Miniseries and one at Boomer's apartment in Downloaded. Both times, the TV sets were vertical rectangular screens. Would this be an aesthetic, kind of like the aversion to right angles fettish? (although, with some sense of irony, the corners for the TV sets are right angles)--Homeworld616 06:11, 23 July 2006 (CDT)

Ever consider the mechanical hell necessary to make a hexagonal display? In all seriousness, I think the orientation is more important than the shape; it a space conserving look. They could've placed triangles at the corners to "fake" the hex shape, but when it comes to informational displays, the Colonials appear just as rectangular as the rest of us. --Spencerian 09:09, 30 July 2006 (CDT)

Merging articles.

The Tattoo article has been merged. As this article is supposed to describe the Twelve Colonies' tastes and not those of the actors, references to the nature of the actor's personal tattoos has been either made a reference point or deleted to keep the article on-topic and germane.

I have also removed Dreilide Thrace from the article, replacing it with "Kara Thrace's Father," as that name is not canonical per wiki policy not to treat Sky One's biographies as canonical. A reference notes this adjustment. --Spencerian 17:59, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Popular music

There is loud music playing in Boomer's apartment in "Downloaded" and some songs play in Joe's bar. This might be worth mentioning, but I don't really know what to say except "Colonial popular music is similar to modern Earth", which is kind of obvious anyways. Or we just note appearances of such music without any commentary. --Serenity 12:17, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

Well, one of the pieces playing in Joe's Bar is apparently something by Raya Yarborough, according to Bear McCreary, and it apparently came from the "Rest Stop" soundtrack. Otherwise, we should just note its appearance without commentary, since we don't know much about the pieces they've chosen. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 12:56, 18 August 2007 (CDT)

Right Angles

Do we have any idea where the deal with the Colonials and right angles stems from? Is there some reason behind it or is it just a cultural quirk? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rapturous (talk • contribs).

It was actually a joke that went overboard... They had to cut corners in producing the Miniseries, so, well, they cut corners. It should be noted somewhere -- but it should really be noted here as well, now that you've brought the subject up. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 16:02, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

In the Companion (see footnote 11) it's also stated that there is a production reason behind it. It was a joke, but they also felt that it would be a way to make the world a bit more different despite the similarities. --Serenity 16:06, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

Danged waste of paper, cutting the corners off. In the production environment of the show, what do they do with those scraps of paper? In the context of the genre, what do the Colonials do with the scraps? Recycle them? I have to assume that a society that's learned to make space flight routine has also learned to produce only recyclable materials and to recycle everything as a matter of personal habit. Gcapp1959 12:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, some of the production people believe that the corners are recycled, since the corners on the pages of books are typically empty and unused anyway. Not a "canon" explanation, but a reasonable one. Also, if you read Ken Hawryliw's interview on Future-Past, you can get an idea of who really came up with the idea and why. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 16:22, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Gina's bodyguard's tattoo

In the episode "Epiphanies", the bodyguard Baltar meets right before Gina has two tattoos on both of her arms. Worth mentioning here or not notable enough? I tried taking a screenshot but the tattoo keeps blurring: image.--DrWho42 15:46, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The tattoo is so large and detailed (even with that image) that it's more likely its a "terrestrial" tattoo and not one specifically added on the extra for the show. Helps to show how tough they are, but likely doesn't have any further meaning than, "Hey! I have a tattoo!" :) --Spencerian 03:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Spence on this one. The tattoo is just the actress's own and not applied by the makeup department. However, if there's anything jarring about it (something definitively "Earth-like" vs. "Colonial-like") then it might be worth noting. Beyond that, I don't really feel inclined to note it. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 04:10, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Could someone add the reference for me?

I've expanded the last paragraph of the popular musical section to include the music heard in the V Club during the Caprica Pilot however I have no idea how to add the reference ([[1]], scroll down to the comments section. Bear's reply on May 22nd 2009). Could someone add this reference for me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by These (talk • contribs).

Will do. For future reference, to add references go to the toolbox under the "Save Page" / "Show Preview" buttons and, from the drop down menu on the right, select "citations" and click on the type of citation you'd like to add. Also, don't forget to sign your posts! ;-) -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 18:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Sam Adama's Tattoos

While browsing the TV Tropes website, I came across a link to an article that discussed the meaning Sam's tattoos and I thought I'll check to see if this info had been incorporated into this wiki. A thorough search revealed that the info had not been added. So what I am asking is this, am I right in assuming that this info is something that the wiki is looking or is it best left out?

Also, should the other info revealed (Sam's Patron God, Ha'La'Tha pledge) be placed in their respected article?

Link to article: 'Caprica' producer Jane Espenson explains Sam Adama's tattoos --JoyaOscura 04:27, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, by all means it should be added. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 13:18, 26 March 2010 (UTC)